Run, baby, run!
by Lu82
Summary: Aziraphale has a perfectly respectable mission: he's very determined, but he also knows he just can't do this only on his own. But he's aware that there's someone who can help him… a certain demon to involve in his 'ineffable' plan.
1. Chapter 1

_Disclaimer: I don't own anything, everything belongs to those wonderful angels/demons named Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett (R.I.P. :'( )_

_My point is… my point is … I am NOT a serious author, lol. Let me prove that!  
_

_English in not my native language, I beg your pardon. I desperately need a beta, but I can't find anyone._

_Okay, the first fic I posted here 'went down like a lead balloon ' ^^' , let's try again, maybe I'll be a bit luckier this time…_

Aziraphale has a perfectly respectable mission: he's very determined, but he also knows he just can't do this only on his own.  
But he's aware that there's someone who can help him… a certain demon to involve in his 'ineffable' plan.

Runa, baby run!

Chapter I (I): Whaaaaat?!

"We… WHAAAAAT?!"  
Crowley was so shocked that he lost his grip on the pieces of bread he was holding.

They all fell on the ground, except for one and he threw it towards the lake. There were three ducks on that spot.  
Three very, very hungry ducks and only one minuscule piece of bread. The aquatic birds examined each other, with challenging looks. They eyes moved from that craved prey to the troublesome rivals.  
A few seconds later, it was all squawks and lost feathers in the attempt of showing to the other two ducks their own supremacy.  
Crowley stared at such show with a pleased smirk.  
After all, even if in a much lowered scale, he had managed to spread some sane discord.

"You heard correctly!" Aziraphale insisted, making such unpleasant scenery end.  
His holy eyes just could not stand violence, in every form.  
It wasn't even necessary a miracle to make the quarrel end, all he had to do was to pick from their shared sack a handful of pieces of bread.  
He threw them on the lake with a very good aim, giving enough food to every duck and harmony was immediately back among those birds.

"It's only a temporary suspension of our activities, a break from our usual matters, it's a bunch of more than deserved days of rest and relax, it's…"

"Dammit, Aziraphale! I bloody know what a holiday is!" Crowley snapped, mostly because he just hated whenever someone tried to explain things to him as if he was an utter idiot. "I still don't get why you want _us_ to have holiday together!"  
"I reckon it's something that would help us even more to blend with humans; because this is something they keep looking for, I dare to say that they crave it," the angel explained, quietly. "So, I am pretty sure that only if we experience that on our skin… oh, well, the skin of the human shells our bosses assigned to us… we could really understand the value of this human habit."

Aziraphale had embellished his flawless speech, as if it was the most prestigious lawyer's closing statement.  
Actually, he had rehearsed a lot, hidden in his library, once he had (kindly) chased away even the last of those dangerous customers who seemed interested to buy his beloved, unfindable books way too much for his liking.

He had looked for the most suitable claims, he had thought about all the examples to use, if necessary; he had dosed the tone of his voice, knowing which part of his speech needed more emphasis.  
And all his hard work was proving to be successful.  
Crowley was listening to him in deep silence. He had a relaxed posture, with his legs parted, wrapped in those black jeans that seemed to get skinnier year by year, revealing his crotch more and more.

He was sitting on the bench, his arms stretched out along the upper edge of the bench, his head tilted towards the angel. His mouth was a little distorted, because he kept nibbling his own lower lip.

All that was a clear signal that the angel was getting Crowley's utter attention.  
And the angel did want to get it so much!  
Yes of course, it was important to get as close as possible to every meaningful human experience, but it was another unspeakable truth the real reason why he wanted to do that.  
That's true, Crowley and Aziraphale have been hanging around for six millenniums which is a lot of time; but contemplated one by one, they were never long periods. Most of the times, they met each other only for nothing more than a couple of days, sometimes even for a bunch a hours, you know, just the time of a temptation, a redemptions or for saving each other's life.

To manage to convince Crowley would have meant to have the chance to spend two weeks –maybe even three- with him, dividing their time in equal parts.  
This is the real experience he was looking forward to test.

"You know what, angel? This holiday thing… it's not bad at all. Pretty cool idea." the demon smirked. His eyes shined but Aziraphale couldn't notice that behind his dark glasses. "So? Where do you want to go? The Moon? Mercury? Mars? Jupiter? Venus? An unexplored galaxy?"

They were very interesting suggestions, too bad that the angel had to reject them all.

"Nope, my dear, actually I was planning something a little more human. A beach. A holiday by the sea. People say that there are high probabilities to get some relax and fun … that is a very interesting mix!" he tried to convince his nemesis and succeeded.

"The sea, uh? Actually, I haven't seen the sea since when one of your frantic characters split it in two in order to make all his people pass through that!" Crowley grumbled, twisting his bust in order to face the angel better.  
"Of course, he had to do that! And he reunited the sea just at the proper time, getting rid once for all of _your _frantic character and his army!" the gorgeous angel snapped.  
"Hey, cool down, angel! We're even, as always." Crowley smiled, raising his hands as a sign of surrender.

"So, do you really fancy the idea of spending some time by the sea? I was thinking of Malibu…"  
"Oh yeah, Los Angeles, such a sinful city, despite its name!" the demon chuckled.  
"It is… it is not that sinful…" Aziraphale jabbered, but he didn't manage to sound as certain as he planned.

Sure, all he had to do was to ignore the immoral style of life, the provocative dresses, the highly corrupting power of money, all the temptations coming from anywhere, mostly by not demonic ways… okay, maybe Crowley had won that battle of words.

"So, are we going on that holiday? Do you agree?" he asked Crowley, but he was almost afraid that he would refuse out of the blue.  
"I accept, but only if we take a ride also to Las Vegas, that town does know what a proper temptation is, even more than one!" his eternal sworn enemy/friend/and maybe something more sneered.

At his own peril, Aziraphale shook the hand Crowley was stretching out to him, sealing their deal.  
After all, he was about to impose another, more fundamental condition.

"Crowley, there's still something I need to tell you. I want to do a sort of real experiment, such as … how long can we resist acting like utter human beings?" he revealed, once for all.

Crowley took his dark glasses of, in order to show him how the last statement had shocked him.

"Do you mean no miracles?" he wondered, bewildered.  
"Not even the tiniest one, from when we pack our suitcases in order to leave to when we are back from our holiday and unpack them. Of course, we'll also travel only with classic human methods." the blond suggested.

Crowley wore his glasses again and stared at him deeply, silent, for several minutes, with an unreadable expression on his face. As if he was the best poker player ever.  
Second only to God, of course.  
And then he issued the final verdict.

"Interesting. That's crazy, useless, daft; but interesting, indeed."

Aziraphale beamed at him, heartened.

"Alright, so we're going to do that for real. If you think about it, I've asked you about it just in time. February is about to end and I guess that July would be the perfect time for our holiday. And I believe we have to do everything like humans would do… even how to go there." the angel pushed his luck.

Because he actually felt lucky.

"Do you mean… to pay for that? Real money? Not miracle ones? To pay a stupid travel agency? And how are we supposed to get the money?" a very stunned Crowley gave Aziraphale the third degree.  
"Well, sometimes I'm forced to sell some of by books, sadly… so I have some money saved, not much, but..." Aziraphale babbled. "About you, well, I don't know, maybe you could sell some plants of yours…"

"Whaaaaat?!" Crowley barked. "I'll never, NEVER ever part from _Rhapsody, Crazy Little Thing_, _Bicycle_, _Pressure_, _Ga Ga,_ _Dust,_ _Magic_, _Want_ and _Miracle! They're mine, they must tremble with my orders! No bloody way they can end up with someone who sings pretty sappy songs to them and decorate their leaves with stupid ribbons!" he snapped, gesticulating frantically.  
"Okay, okay, never mind, forget what I said!" the angel calms him down and then he raises his eyebrow, looking at Crowley with an amused expression. "Did you really name your plants after some part of titles of Queen's songs?"  
"Hell yeah I did, do you know better names? I mean , I would have called them directly Freddie_ _1_, _2_, _3_ , _4_ ,_5_,  
_6_, _7_, _8_ e _9_…_ but that would make me a fanboy way too much, don't you think so?" Crowley asked for his opinion, feeling doubtful; but the most important thing is that his previous rage was only a distant memory.  
After all, Queen uncorked a miracle on him, always._

_"Well, darling, I'm afraid it would be a tad exaggerate… this way is much better!" the angel went along with him, while he silently wondered what 'fanboy' meant.  
Probably it was another word that Crowley had just invented._

_"By the way, when are you going to give me a plant? So I can call it Best Friend." the redhead murmured, surprising the blond.  
"Oooohhh.." he blushed, giving the other a sly look._

_"I got it! Come with me, angel, I know how to make our holiday come true!" Crowley got up from the bench, dragging Aziraphale by an arm.  
"But.. where are we going?" the blond followed him, as they left St. James' Park.  
"Have you ever heard about human people who try to change their lives relying on luck? That's what we're going to do, too." he announced._

_Crowley managed to find a tobacco store nearby rather quickly and he got in with Aziraphale._

_"Well, well, angel, let me introduce you to one of these 1990s days' most brilliant inventions: scratch cards." the demon informed him, while they were waiting for the customers ahead to be served.  
Aziraphale stared curiously at those colorful rectangles of paper, spread all over the wall behind the cash register._

_About that period they were living, Crowley adored long lasting hair gel, he had fun modelling his hair like little horns at both edges. It suited him. He had a short cut with a bushy tuft.  
Aziraphale had become familiar with hydrogen peroxide, he loved that because it made his blond hair even brighter._

_"What are those things?" Aziraphale asked Crowley with a soft voice, pointing at the small cards.  
"They also call it instant lottery: you take a card, scratch it and if you manage to meet all the requirements you can win. Winnings go from money enough only for buying another card to… a larger amount of money that maybe won't change your life, but can make it way much better!" the red haired demon explained to him.  
"Ooh, this is such a lovely invention!" Aziraphale beamed ecstatic.  
"Oh yeah, our queues in Hell definitely increased after that; involving people who ended up losing their house because they scratched those cards way too obsessively or people who moved to way more noxious forms of gambling. Rarely Satan has been in such a good mood!" the other sneered proudly.  
"Oh, good Lord, nooo! It's deeply necessary that someone stops this horrible plague!" the blond grew worried. "Well, of course, before fighting it, I should figure out better what I'm dealing with." he grumbled, drawing a coin from his pocket and waiting for his turn.  
"Of course, you have to." Crowley chuckled. _

_(End part I)_

_Welcome to Aziraphale's ineffable plan, and, trust me, you still have to find out what else he wants Crowley to do for him ;)_

_about the timeline, well, if I understood that properly, in the book Armageddon should be around the end of 1990s (and in this story it's early 1990s, like 1994/95 okay?) while in the show it should be in 2018/19 … and I always prefer to follow the TV series ;) So our guys are free to enjoy some fun, Armageddon is still pretty far ;)_

_Hope you'll like it so far, but mostly I hope it's not too confusing in some parts (I'm writing this in Italian, my native language, so it's not that simple to give some sentences the same meaning … :( )_

_Please, whatever you think, let me know ;)  
_


	2. Chapter 2

Summary:

Aziraphale reveals his true plan to Crowley.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Chapter I (II): Whaaaaat?!

"Good morning, how can I help you?" the cashier askes, affably.  
"I need one of those… those…" Aziraphale wavered, forgetting their name.  
"Instant lottery," the gorgeous demon promptly helped him, whispering at his ear.  
"Instant lottery cards." the angel concluded the sentence, silently thanking his helper.

Once they got it, they leant against the banter.

"Do your best, angel!" the demon incited him, providing a coin to scrap the card.  
"This number should appear in all the three columns, let's see if it will happen." Aziraphale read the printed instructions.

Scraping the surface, he realised that goal wasn't that easy to reach.

"I've failed!" he complained, disheartened, feeling the urge to rip that card that had fooled him so badly.  
Crowley snatched it from his hand.

He smiled languidly at him, pinching his cheek affectionately and bending over his ear.

"Angel, don't you know that human saying? Unlucky at cards, lucky in love." he murmured, resorting to his most erotic tone of voice, as he rubbed himself against the angel's hip.

Aziraphale immediately parted from him, shivering and feeling hot at the same time.

"Huh! Right, sure. I'm an ethereal creature of pure love, of course I must be lucky in love!" he dodged Crowley's advance with nonchalance.  
Crowley snorted, but then he smiled again, remembering the card he was holding.  
He shook it, apparently to clean it off the silver powder, but, for some reason, that movement managed to move some numbers in those columns.

"Very well, I mean, very bad. Okay, let's go cash out, now." he chuckled, amused, taking the angel with him to the cashier.  
"But… to cash out what?" the blond frowned.

-

"Crowley! This is cheating!" Aziraphale retorted, as they left the tobacco store, before they drew way too much attention on themselves.

Aziraphale could swear he had even seen a camera crew approaching the store.

After all, winning 5000 pounds in the quiet _City of Westminster_ district wasn't something that happened every day.

"Nope, this is more trying to experience a human victory, okay, maybe with a little help from Hell! Besides, the biggest prize was 50000 pounds, see? You can't even blame me for a Greed sin." the redhead pointed out, with fake innocence. "However, we can't have the money immediately, we have to wait for two months, then we'll be in time to book our holiday, with the human way."  
"Okay, okay, I admit it's a little help we needed, after all." the blond said, without figuring out what the other was handing to him.

"This is the winning card, this is the receipt. Now you're free to enjoy the oh-so-thrilling experience of claiming our victory to the Post Office, but you'll do that on your own!" Crowley scoffed. "I guess I'll go home, terrorizing my plants a little bit and then I'll take a nap!" he walked away in his lanky way.

Aziraphale was anything but dejected, quite the contrary, now he had plans for that afternoon. That was a very respectable task.

"Oh, it was all so exciting!" he told Crowley about his experience that night at The Ritz. "There was this queue so tidy, so neat, scanned by such a sophisticated electronic system that allowed just few numbers at time to go on, each one to the relative service desk. I really don't understand how certain people kept complaining for a tiny bit of waiting."  
"Angel, unlike me and you people don't have eternity," Crowley explained, mixing his coffee with a spoon before drinking it.

"And then it was my turn and they make me fill all the form fields, so accurately!" the blond goes on, feeling almost dizzy due all to that bureaucracy.  
"I understand why you're so thrilled, no wait, I really can't. So they will give us our money or what?" Crowley cut it short, but he had noticed something relevant.

"Yep, they will send them to our joint account that I opened today: _Crowraphale_ account." Aziraphale explained beaming.

But Crowley was beaming even more.

"So you do like that name!"  
"It sounds so good, I can't deny that." the blond blushed.

"As you can't deny that tonight you didn't ordered the dessert and I want to know why." Crowley questioned.

That was what he had noticed.

"Well, I'm not hungry anymore." the other noncommittally hummed.

"Angel."

"I've already eaten so much tonight, everything was so delicious and…"

"Aziraphale, I'm not going to buy it! Tell me why you didn't eat the dessert … and now that I think about that, you didn't even drink much wine…" the redhead insisted.

"Okay, okay. Maybe there's still something I have to tell you…"

"Oh no, you don't feel fine, right. Are you ill?" the demon grows agitated. "Wait a minute, what the fuck am I saying? We can't be ill!" he calmed himself down.

"I feel more than fine, indeed. It's about the holiday I want to spend with you." the blond murmured. "We'll be on a beach, I guess we'll wear very few dresses,"

"Oh yeah, you're guesssssssssing right!" the demon hissed, horny just at the thought.

Aziraphale slided his char closer to his, taking his hand, too.

"So, dear, I…"

"Yesssss?" Crowley swung his chair closer.  
"I have to start getting ready for swimsuit season!" the angel proudly informed him.

Crowley almost fell from his chair.

"Swimsuit season?" he repeated, in disbelief.

"Yep, why are you so stunned? I bet it's a demonic invention. That constant sensation of discomfort that makes you feel inadequate to those role models of perfection you can see everywhere," the blond argumented.

"Whaaat?! If anything, that's _your_ bloody invention; with that constant spur a healthier style of life, healthy eating, keeping on working on themselves to improve… eeeww, I break out in hives just at the bloody thought!" the demon whined, pretending to scratch himself everywhere.

"Okay, I don't care who invented it, I just want to pass that test." Aziraphale declared, determined.

"Angel, we've been through this, more than a century ago If that fucking asshole of your Boss is still bothering you with his bollocks, I swear that I…" Crowley swore.

He really had no idea about what he would have done, but if would have done something, for sure.

"This is not about Gabriel, he hasn't been talking with me for ages. This is not something someone ordered me to do, this is something _I_ want to do, in order to prove to myself I can go beyond my limits, at least sometimes." the blond pointed out, aiming his blue puppy eyes at the demon. "It's only for this summer, then I'll go back to my habits, as always. But I want to succeed, or at least to try. Will you help me, dear?"

Dear.  
The angel had the demon wrapped around his finger and he did know that.  
Crowley just couldn't resist him whenever he resorted to that pleading voice, those puppy eyes and mostly that affectionate name.

Funny.  
He, a very talented tempter demon, had trouble to resist.  
Doubly funny.  
He was going to help an angel.  
Triply funny.  
He was going to help an angel no to fall into temptation.

"Okay, angel. Although I don't approve this obsession of your at all, I'm going to help you, it that's so important for you."  
"You have no idea how much it is." the angel beamed with thankfulness.

"Be warned, I won't be tender." Crowley warned him.  
"Oh, but I don't want you to be tender." the angel shook his head.

"I'll turn your existence into a living hell!" the redhead swore to him.  
"And I'm going to face it with a huge smile plastered on my face." the blond struck back, stubborn.

They shook their hands to seal their agreement.

"Alright, angel. Let's leave now. You're going to need a lot of rest." Crowley urged him, getting up.  
"You're right." the other followed him, paying the bill and leaving a generous tip.

"The training will start tomorrow, at morning." Crowley explained, as they walked towards the Bentley.

"I couldn't ask better!" the blond grinned.

"At Hyde Park, at five o' clock." the demon pointed out, setting the car in motion.

"At Hyde Park at fi… at five o'clock in the morning?!" Aziraphale's eyes went wide, as Crowley drove very fast and recklessly.

Crowley took his dark glasses off, in order to stare at him a sadistically as possible.

"What part of living hell didn't you get?"

TBC

Notes:

Get ready to see Crowley as an intransigent Personal Trainer who is even more determined than his trainee ;)

this story is meant to be fun, so I hope it will make you smile sometimes

Okay, there are some parts that slightly remind to my one-shot 'Chips', but you don't really need to read it. ;)

In Italy I've reached chapter VI, let me know if I should go on with the translation or if it's not worth it :/

Hope you'll like it so far, but mostly I hope it's not too confusing in some parts (I'm writing this in Italian, my native language, so it's not that simple to give some sentences the same meaning, that's why I need a beta, if you care to help 3 )

Thanks for your time.


End file.
